Santiago Uribe, the brother of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, was sentenced on Tuesday to 28 years and four months in prison for murder and conspiracy, writes LETA citing DPA.
During the internal armed conflict in Colombia in the early 1990s, Santiago Uribe created a far-right paramilitary group that eliminated supporters of leftist guerrilla formations, reported Caracol TV citing court documents.
In 2021, Santiago Uribe was acquitted by a first-instance court.
"I feel deep pain over my brother's conviction. May God be with us," former president Uribe wrote on the social network X.
Colombia has suffered for decades from an armed conflict between state armed forces, leftist guerrillas, and right-wing paramilitary groups. This conflict claimed the lives of 220,000 people, and millions were forced to leave their homes.
Former president Uribe himself, accused of attempting to influence witnesses and procedural fraud, was acquitted by a second-instance court in October.
In the first instance, he was sentenced to 12 years of house arrest this summer, becoming the first former president of Colombia to be convicted of a crime and receive a sentence for it.
The court found that Uribe had contacted convicted former right-wing militants to have them give false testimony in his favor. The former president claimed he only wanted to convince them to tell the truth.
Alvaro Uribe served as president from 2002 to 2010 and conducted a continuous military campaign against drug cartels and the leftist guerrilla movement Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). He remains the most popular politician in Colombia, although critics accuse him of collaborating with armed right-wing groups in the fight against leftist guerrillas.
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